Making Labour-Market Geographies: Volatile ‘Flagship’ Inward Investment and Peripheral Regions

Abstract

In recent years a series of high-profile flagship plant closures and short-lived investment projects across peripheral regions in the United Kingdom provided a stark reminder of the potential fallibility of peripheral region development strategies based upon inward investment. Nevertheless, inward investment promotion remains a common component within the economic development strategies of UK peripheral regions. In particular, capturing the potential positive labour market contributions offered by flagship projects has been used by policymakers to legitimate the continued pursuit of inward investment. In this paper I move beyond the static analysis of employment outcomes of investment episodes by investigating the detailed structure of labour-market processes and imprints across workforce formation and dissolution. I use the example of the fluctuating and youthful history of the semiconductor fabrication industry in the old industrial region of the North East of England to illustrate the spatial, occupational, and sectoral labour-market imprints of investment episodes. Using the example of two large-scale high-technology inward-investment projects, Fujitsu and Siemens, I expand our understanding of both the labour-market dynamics associated with volatile flagship investment and the policy implications for peripheral regions.